Le secret de Madame Blanche

Innocent woman meets rich playboy. Innocent woman is seduced by rich playboy. Innocent woman is abandoned by rich playboy. Innocent woman has rich playboy's child. Innocent woman loses rich playboy's child. No-longer-innocent woman ages and prepares to sacrifice all for her child.

An entire genre of motion pictures, which often feature Barbara Stanwyck or Lana Turner, has used this basic plot to wring tears from largely female audiences. In "The Secret of Madame Blanche," Irene Dunne takes a turn at this well-worn routine and maintains her dignity throughout, despite the script's attempts to drown her in clichés. In the role of showgirl, Sally Sanders, Dunne has a few opportunities to show off her fine voice, but the musical selections are poor. The relatively short film, which was adapted from a play, lurches forward from hackneyed scene to hackneyed scene and leaves chasms of time for the audience to fill in. Occasionally, patient viewers will be rewarded with dialog and delivery so rich in camp that they will howl helplessly with unintended laughter, although a mouth-to-mouth kiss between mother and son, perhaps common for the period, induces cringes today. While Lionel Atwill is effective as Aubrey St. John, the selfish controlling father, and Philips Holmes is appropriately weak as his son, the rich playboy, the film offers little beyond the incomparable Irene Dunne slumming in a sub-par vehicle. Coincidences abound, French accents come and go, laws benefit the rich and oppress the poor, and a mother's self-sacrificing love conquers all. What more could one ask for? Perhaps Barbara Stanwyck and "Stella Dallas?"

Not a whole lot to recommend about this one - the story is based on a common premise from the period, and the dialog and acting are wooden, particularly in the first half. It's interesting (and a little maddening) to reflect that the males from all three generations of this wealthy family act quite poorly to working girls. Irene Dunne is earnest in all of the melodramatic phases of the story, if a little muted. A better film of this type is 'The Sin of Madelon Claudet' (1931).

IRENE DUNNE had THE SECRET OF MADAME BLANCHE. It's the forerunner of all those Madame X stories that gave actresses meaty roles in tear-jerkers. For Olivia de Havilland it was TO EACH HIS OWN. For Lana Turner and earlier, Ruth Chatterton, it was MADAME X. For Helen Hayes it was THE SIN OF MADELON CLAUDET. These were the kind of stories that spanned some twenty years, always about women who were cheated out of mother love--women who fell in love unwisely and were then cheated by circumstances.

LIONEL ATWILL is the rich father whose son (PHILLIPS HOLMES) has fallen in love with a cabaret singer and he opposes the match from the start, threatening to stop giving his son handouts to keep them solvent. The son is destitute when he learns that she's about to have a baby and finally commits suicide. The years fly by and Dunne is now a working woman in London at a not very reputable establishment populated by servicemen. It's World War I and one of the patrons is a young man who makes a fuss over not being given a room. He turns out to be her son and she is soon protecting him from a murder charge.

It's a pretty plot-heavy melodrama with enough twists and turns to keep the viewer interested, but you have to have a taste for these mother/son tear-jerkers to truly enjoy this sort of film.

The final scene with mother and son reunited at a prison after a stormy trial, is reminiscent of MADAME X--but at least here, the son learns the true identity of his mother.

If I had been Irene Dunne in The Secret Of Madame Blanche I might have thought twice about eloping with charming wastrel Phillips Holmes.. Sadly she met his ironfisted father Lionel Atwill only after they were married.

Dunne plays a singer and does get to show her vocal talents in this film which is always appreciated. Holmes who does nothing, but spend dear old dad's money in various hedonistic pursuits. Of course dad does not even try to channel Holmes into some useful profession where he could have an income. What he wants and frankly I thought this a hoot, he wants to have him get a seat in Parliament with of course an arranged marriage with a woman of the proper station.

Atwill has really no redeeming qualities as a father. He just wants to dominate his kid. Eventually he forces Dunne to give her child over to him to be raised in the image. As the kid grows up to be Douglas Walton he truly is a chip off the old Atwill/Holmes block.

Fast forward to the World War I years and Walton while AWOL gets himself in a big jackpot and he also meets Dunne with no idea she's his mom. Atwill told him she was dead.

I won't go any farther except to say that the whole thing has a Madame X quality to it. It does work out better for the principal cast members.

The Secret Of Madame Blanche is a property very unlikely to be remade. Still the cast led by Dunne, Holmes, Atwill, and Walton does pull it together.

another winner is this Madame-X-type film about mother love. She plays a classy stage performer who marries the spoiled son (Phillips Holmes)of a selfish rich man (Lionel Atwill). The son commits suicide after the father cuts him off and Dunne then loses the baby to the evil old man. She fends for herself over the next 20 years in French bars. A curious set of coincidences reunites mother and son during WW I. Anyway, Dunne is wonderful--as usual--as the mother and gets to age (as in Cimarron) into a spunky old lady. Irene Dunne remains one of the most underrated stars of the 30s, excellent in drama, comedy, or musicals. She's also one of the most likable.